


Workspace

by venort



Category: Pacific Rim
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-10
Updated: 2015-08-10
Packaged: 2018-04-13 23:28:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4541526
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venort/pseuds/venort
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On his colleague Dr. Geiszler’s suggestion, Hermann gives his wife Vanessa a tour of his and Newt’s lab via Skype during the final days of the Kaiju War.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Workspace

**Author's Note:**

> Formatting for this one is probably wonky too; I haven't had the time to figure out what the standard is. Apologies!

'Newton,' Hermann snapped, 'please try to hold that thing steady.'

'I'm trying!' Newt replied, making a show of holding Hermann's tablet level.

'Do you want Vanessa to get motion sick?'

'Hermann,' Vanessa said, a hand raised to her smiling lips, 'don't worry-- I'm fine.'

 

'Well then,' Hermann stated, adjusting the heavily-starched collar of his shirt. 'I suppose we can begin the tour, then.'

Lowering her hand, his wife Vanessa smiled broadly at him through the screen. He'd always loved her smile, the way her teeth practically shone out from her flawless light brown features. Today was no exception: she looked nothing short of radiant with her, her black coils of hair tied loosely back from her face. Turing, one of their cats, was visible in her lap, curled into a purring ginger loaf. 'Great-- I've been looking forward to this ever since Newt suggested it.'

Newt allowed himself a smug smile. 'Where are you gonna start, dude?'

 

Hermann glanced around their shared lab space for several seconds before settling on a good starting point: his chalkboard huge, three-panelled chalkboard.

'This is where I do most of my work,' he said, pacing over to it and leaning heavily on his cane, gesturing for Newt to follow and hold the tablet higher. 'Of course, you should have no problem following my calculations here, dear--' he gestured to the top corner with his cane, wobbling slightly without its aid to keep him balanced-- 'but the real breakthrough in this equation came--'

 

He hesitated. Someone had written, in amongst his calculations about the Breach, the words "E=MC Hammer". It didn't take a genius of his calibre to figure out who.

'Dr. Geiszler,' he snapped, as Vanessa giggled at him, 'what is the meaning of this?'

'It means musicians have a lot of energy, dude,' Newt said, struggling to keep a straight face. He'd scrawled that three days ago, and had been waiting for Hermann to notice ever since.

Shaking his head, Hermann said, 'never mind. At least you didn't erase anything.'

'You know I'd never mess with your space like that, man,' Newt said, defensive. 'Future of humanity at stake and all that.'

Vanessa nodded in agreement. 'I know I say this a lot, but I'm so proud of you, dear-- and you, Newt. Nobody else can do what you two are doing here.'

Hermann's face flushed red; Newt glanced away, a smile playing across his unkempt features.

 

Had anyone else said this to him, Hermann's reaction would likely have been to agree, putting in a bare modicum of effort to appear humble as he smiled inwardly at being recognised as the genius he was. Too few people had realised just how important he was to the PPDC-- thankfully, Stacker Pentecost had always been one of these people, and he had to begrudgingly admit that his colleague Dr. Geiszler was, too.

 

'Moving on,' Hermann stated, crossing the room towards a desk loaded with reference books and an old-fashioned computer-- CRT monitor and all. 'This is where I run basic checks to ensure my calculations are free from error.'

'And try to discover the secrets of fire,' Newt added. 'Dude, that thing is ancient. Why d'you still use it?'

'It's what he grew up with,' Vanessa said. 'Hermann is set in his ways, Newt-- he's best with old technology like that.'

Hermann nodded in agreement. 'Thank you, dear; this setup is perfectly adequate for my purposes. Were I to take time out from my work to learn anything more advanced, it would prove a setback that may fatally delay our efforts to close the breach.'

'You learned this tablet pretty okay,' newt said.

 

Hermann hesitated. 'Yes,' he agreed. 'Thanks largely to your own efforts, I must admit.' It had been a birthday present-- although Newt had wrapped it in Christmas paper before realising Hermann was Jewish, and had kept it hidden in his half of the lab (and not nearly as well-hidden as he thought he had) from late November until Hermann's birthday in June.

'I'm glad you've modernised at least this much,' Vanessa agreed, absently stroking Turing, who was awake now and mewling softly. 'What are those books over there?'

'References, for the most part,' Hermann said.

'I gotta say,' Newt said, leaning sideways and struggling to keep the tablet steady, 'I don't even understand the titles of most of these-- not my area of expertise. Oh, but these I know-- Alan Turing: Unlocking the Enigma. Alan Turing: The Enigma Man. Alan Turing: The Enigma. The Man who Knew Too Much: Alan Turing and the--'

'Yes, yes, alright,' Hermann snapped. His biographies of Turing were all well-read and yellowed, although he'd been careful to keep their spines intact. Truth be told, he didn't really need to read them anymore: he knew Turing's life almost as well as his own.

 

'Besides,' Hermann continued, 'the real work is done here.' He gestured to the huge hologram projector that dominated his side of the room, beside the ancient computers and books on Turing: its casing looked about as old and yellowed as everything else, but this was largely because it had been salvaged from the Shatterdome in Vladivostok when it was given away to the Russian government: the projector itself, along with the files and records from that Shatterdome's long-disbanded science team, had been a gift to him from Alexis and Sasha Kaidonovsky upon their arrival in Hong Kong. 'While I can visualise the breach well enough, I often find it helps to have a more tactile reference for it, particularly when explaining my work to others.' He sat down momentarily in a folding chair, resting his cane across his lap, and leaned forwards, sketching out the warped cylindrical throat of the breach in three dimensions in a series of well-practiced motions.

 

Newt leaned across his shoulder and added a smiley face half way down.

 

'Would you stop that!' Hermann snapped. 'This is delicate equipment!'

Vanessa giggled. 'Newt, as much as I appreciate your sense of humour-- do you have to give my husband such a hard time?'

'Sorry, Man,' Newt mumbled. 'Woman. Ma'am.'

'Oh hey,' Vanessa noted, craning her slender neck to see past Hermann, 'your bedside lamp.'

 

It was true: behind the projector and behind a large bookcase of reference tomes Hermann rarely needed, stuffed with everything records and accounts of earlier Kaiju attacks to several of Newt's notebooks full of information on everything from size to weight to death tolls to sketches on everything from Trespasser onwards, was a low, broad lamp with a shade comprised of several wide cylinders, gradually stepping upwards.

'Yes,' Hermann smiled, 'Well spotted. Sometimes I come down here to read when I can't sleep.'

'He does,' Newt said. 'Usually wakes me up in the process.'

'If we didn't have to share a weighted blanket,' Hermann snapped, 'then that wouldn't be a problem.'

'Admit it, man, we both need the warmth.' Newt smiled at him.

After a moment of glaring at his colleague grim-faced, Hermann nodded. 'Actually,' he admitted, 'it is freezing in here at night.'

'I could always send you another blanket?' Vanessa offered.

Hermann glanced at Newt. 'No, thank you,' he said.

'Yeah, we're good, I think,' Newt agreed.

'Anyway,' Hermann continued, 'over here is--'

'Me,' Vanessa smiled.

 

It was true: taped to the wall above several pipes were a few dozen photos of Vanessa in various poses and outfits; one, in fact, from every professional shoot she had ever done.

'That reminds me,' Vanessa said, 'my last care package includes a few from the Blue Milk shoot last month.'

'Thank you, dear,' Hermann said, unable to resist smiling. Mail to and from the Shatterdome had been patchy at first-- but once Tendo Choi began buying coffee beans (he claimed they were his, although technically they were everyone's; this of course did nothing to stop him from using up nearly eight times as much as anyone else) in bulk, he'd allowed everyone else's mail to be piggybacked along with it. Nobody knew exactly where his supply came from, given the coffee shortage-- but he had it shipped to a mailing address in Hong Kong, and bribed one of the Shatterdome's Jumphawk pilots with a steady supply of coffee and donuts to ferry it on from there.

 

Hermann had been surprised and saddened by how small the first of Tendo's mail deliveries had been. He'd never realised just how many people, mechanics and technicians and everyone else that made the Shatterdome tick, had stayed on at the Hong Kong Shatterdome until now not just because they looked up to Stacker Pentecost, but because they'd lost too many loved ones in the war and had nowhere else to go.

 

Another reason he was glad Vanessa was safely tucked away in Munich, hundreds of miles inland and as far from the Pacific as possible. The thought of her over there, safe from what he'd once heard a technician describe as Coastal Lizard Hell, was half the reason he could sleep at night.

 

'Well,' Newt said, turning the tablet momentarily towards himself. 'You've seen Hermann's half-- now for mine.' He glanced at Hermann, daring him to disagree.

'By all means,' Hermann said, standing up once more and crossing to Newt's side of the room, liberally kicking something yellowish and dripping as he did so. 'No entrails in my half, Dr. Geiszler; I know you have a system for these things, as do I, but I'd prefer it if my system remained corpse-free.'

'Sorry, dude,' Newt said. 'Anyway,' he continued, 'these are the two samples I've been comparing for the past day or two.' He handed Hermann the tablet and swung a pair of metal trays around, gesturing to them excitedly. 'This one was harvested in Manila-- it's from Meathead-- emerged from the breach in December of 2019, attacked Manila, killed by Gipsy Danger, Horizon Brave, and Lucky Seven-- Herc Hansen's old Jaeger from before his brother was discharged.' He rolled up his left sleeve and pointed to a small tattoo on his inner arm, just below his elbow, of something that looked like the scaly head of a particularly ugly bird, with vast curving horns and a blunt, serrated beak. This one--' he gestured to the other sample, identical to the untrained eye (and, Hermann had to admit, even to his finely-trained eyes)-- 'is from Scissure-- attacked Sydney before the Jaeger program was developed, eventually killed by the Australian military in Garigal National Park. It's one of the oldest samples I have, and...'

 

He turned around and gestured to the back of his bicep, showing the tablet a winged monstrosity that looked like a dragon, an alligator, and a housefly had gotten together for a drunken one-night stand and somehow conceived a single offspring between the three of them.

'Impressive,' Vanessa said.

Turning back to face Hermann and his wife, Newt smiled at the tablet. 'If there were a blacklight in here, his mouth would be glowing right now.'

'You've a lot of tattoos,' Vanessa said.

Newt's face momentarily flushed red. 'One of every Kaiju I own a sample from. I'm running out of space, if I'm honest-- if I get any pieces of Mutavore, I might need to get your husband's arm inked, instead of my own.'

'I'll consider it,' Hermann said, taking Newt by surprise. He had the Star of David on his right wrist, after all-- although more often than not he kept it covered these days.

'I've been running a DNA analysis on these two samples,' Newt said. 'I've a few theories-- I mean, we'll see soon enough what's what here.' He gestured to a computer setup undeniably more modern than most of Hermann's: a flatscreen monitor perched precariously atop a console covered in dials and buttons.

 

'Anyway,' Newt said, 'I know it looks a little like a morgue over here--' he hurried across to the far wall, beckoning Hermann to follow-- 'but, well, it was, originally. Pentecost had it converted for me when he took over the place, and knocked through into the room next door to give Hermann and me a shared workspace.'

'Unfortunately,' Hermann murmured.

'Wait, hold up,' Vanessa said. 'Hermann, dear, can you turn me a little to the left? That big yellow tank-- Newt?'

Newt's eyes lit up: it wasn't often he had someone new to infodump on who wasn't just willing to listen, but who took it all in and came back for seconds.

'This is from Fiend-- attacked Acapulco on October 31st, 2024.'

'Halloween,' Vanessa noted.

Newt smiled at her. 'And he looked it, too.' He lifted his other sleeve to reveal a wicked-looking Kaiju that would have looked right at home on Halloween, all teeth and horns.

'This is only a part of its brain,' Newt continued. 'Part of the frontal lobe-- I've got big plans for it.'

'He's going to marry it,' Hermann stated.

Newt glared at him, although he seemed to appreciate the joke. 'There's so much more to the Kaiju than we understand-- I think I can tap into this brain with the same technology that Jaeger pilots use. I can find out exactly-- exactly how to pass through the breach!'

 

Hermann stood there staring at his colleague for several seconds. This was new.' No,' he said. 'It's not going to work-- and Pentecost will never allow it, either. Far too great a risk.'

Newt smiled at him. 'We'll see, man,' he said softly.

 

'So,' he continued, 'I've cleared as much space as possible for any new arrivals, as of Striker Eureka's deployment-- but over here on this wall I've parts of Hundun, Kaiceph, Verocitor, Belobog, Reckoner-- Clawhook, Tailspitter, Spinejackal, Yamarashi-- he gestured to another tattoo on his forearm-- 'Really almost everything but Trespasser, Karloff, and Onibaba. Trophies from Trespasser an Karloff are a little beyond my price range, and Mako talked me out of getting anything from Onibaba when I found a few complete scales for sale from a private collection in Yokohama last year.'

'I've seen the way Stacker responds to so much as a photograph of that-- of that monster,' Hermann noted, pacing around the outside of the room, his tablet bobbing back and forth as he leaned heavily on his cane. 'And the way Ms. Mori tenses up at so much as the mention of its name-- it's clear to me that she's not as over the Onibaba Incident as she appears to be.'

'Understandable for both of them,' Vanessa said. 'They lost a lot on that day.'

'May 15, 2016,' Newt offered. Hermann glared at him, and was about to open his mouth when he heard footsteps in the corridor outside.

 

Herc Hansen, the older of Striker Eureka's two pilots, hurried into the room, his pet bulldog hot on his heels: Hermann turned around, still holding the tablet, and grimaced as he noticed the dog was slavering on his side of the room.

'Oh,' Herc said, momentarily distracted by the tablet, 'That's your wife, right, Dr. Gottlieb?'

Hermann nodded, unable to resist smiling. Even after all these years, being reminded of the fact that he was married to Vanessa still gave him a faint buzz.

'Herc Hansen,' he said to Vanessa, smiling warmly. 'I'd offer to shake hands, but--' he gestured to the screen and shrugged. 'This here's Max.'

Max barked happily; Hermann heard a shuffling sound from the tablet, followed by a thunk as Turing sprang up from his wife's lap and leapt to the floor, no doubt turning this way and that looking for hidden dogs.

'Hermann's told me so much about you!' Vanessa smiled. 'It's so nice to finally meet you.'

'Anyway, Dr. Gottlieb; Newt; Pentecost's back from the Wall,' Herc stated. 'Or what's left of it, anyway. Oh, and he's come bearing gifts.'

Newt's face lit up, and he momentarily flapped his hands before clenching his fists and shoving them into his pockets. 'Any idea what they managed to salvage? Oh-- do you think he got me an intact eye?'

'I wouldn't count on it,' Herc smiled. 'Mutavore had enough of 'em, but I think we got them all.'

'I've seen Striker Eureka in action,' Vanessa noted. 'You're really quite impressive.'

'My son Chuck is quite the co-pilot,' Herc said. 'When he's... not being a shit, anyway. Don't get me wrong, he's a good kid, but sometimes he's a little too much like his uncle.'

'Herc,' Hermann said, 'would you-- possibly mind holding the tablet for a moment, so my colleague Dr. Geiszler and I could say goodbye to my wife?'

Herc nodded, taking it from Hermann's hand and holding it up. Newt wrapped an arm around Hermann's shoulder and smiled broadly; Hermann shrugged him off. 'So, Vanessa,' he said, 'I hope you-- enjoyed this little tour.'

'It was wonderful,' she said. 'Thank you-- just how I imagined it.'

'Usual time this Sunday?' Hermann asked.

'Usual time,' Vanessa nodded. 'Love you!'

 

Blowing him a kiss, she closed the call.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not gonna lie, I mostly wrote this because someone got rather salty about my other Vanewmann fic over on tumblr. some people REALLY don't like it when their faves are bisexual and polyamorous.
> 
> That, and I wanted an excuse to go into some of my headcanons-- largely for Newt and Hermann, but also for a handful of other characters.


End file.
